The breakup of the "Coalition" looks

like an electoral disaster at present.  I am referring here to Downunder's "Coalition" of two political parties - the "Liberal" and the "National" parties.

For those of you in Elsewhere the Liberal party is I suppose a bit like the "Conservatives" in the UK. The Nationals are more rural focussed and more concerned with rural issues. Each party has its own policies but they are generally closely aligned.

Most of the time they have managed to rub along and share power in government. They have often done this very successfully, indeed kept a Trump like state Premier who had successfully remained in power for far too many years from becoming Prime Minister. (The said Premier relied on an extraordinary "gerrymander".) Ministries have been shared out between them and much more.

This week the Nationals announced a "divorce". The election results were seen as a disaster. Yes, they were disastrous but there were other factors at play. Our electoral system saw to that. For the "winner" none of this matters of course.

But...there are four areas the Nationals wanted the Liberals to come to grips with. The first of these was the vexed issue of nuclear power and the whole "green" energy debate. The Nationals policy is pro-nuclear. Whatever we may feel about nuclear power and how safe or dangerous it is and how much it might or might not cost we need to explore that issue much more thoroughly. It may not be popular but it may be necessary. We cannot ignore it. The scaremongering in the media has not helped. Labor's "green and nothing but whatever the cost" has been successfully sold to a gullible nation with the help of "experts" and a sales pitch which makes a used car salesman look like an amateur. 

The  Nationals also wanted the big supermarket chains to be forced to sell off parts of their business if they were found to be in breach of competition laws. Why the Liberals could not come at this is beyond me.  Coles and Woolworth's and their sidekick Aldi have more than their fair share of the market. It might not sound much to city people but it could have made a difference to what the big chains charged in rural areas. What would it have cost to enforce? Almost nothing. Why did they not make it policy?

They also wanted to require the telecommunications companies to improve the coverage in rural areas. To me this seems perfectly reasonable, indeed more than reasonable. We are more and more dependent on telecommunications but there are areas where mobile (cell) phone coverage still is not possible. Add this problem to banks and other businesses closing in rural areas and people are left struggling to do ordinary and everyday tasks that urban dwellers take for granted.  So what was wrong with adding that to Coalition policy? Yes, expensive to start with but vital to the future of this country.

And they wanted a $20bn future fund for rural areas. Yes, that is a lot of money but it is not as much as it seems for a country with a land mass this size. If we want people to move to and live in "regional" areas then they are going to need many of the same services as their city counterparts. You are not going to get people to live outside cities if there are no medical services, no hospitals, less education options and the roads are in poor repair - and that is just a start. 

These things may not have won the Coalition the election. The anti-nuclear brigade, many of whom have heavy financial investments in "renewable" energy schemes, had the support of the media - indeed owned a good deal of it. 

The split between the two parties cannot be allowed to turn into divorce. If this happens then the present government will have too much power far into the future and not just for the next three years.